The Chilam Balam of Tizimin is a manuscript compiled and copied by scribes of the Yucatec Maya town of Tizimin, distinct in both content and organization from the better known Chumayel book despite sharing the same genre and naming convention. It is built more explicitly around the katun-cycle calendar than the Chumayel manuscript, presenting a structured chronicle of political and prophetic events tied to the recurring twenty-year katun periods, and Munro Edmonson's scholarly translation treats it as a coherent historical composition in its own right rather than as a miscellany.
Facts
Origins
Era of Compositionchiefly 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies 1 This entity is one of the nine known Books of Chilam Balam (Tizimin); no dedicated Wikipedia article for this specific manuscript was found, so the collection-wide range from the Chilam Balam article is recorded here. Era of CompositionThe surviving manuscript is generally dated to the colonial period, understood to preserve material copied and recopied across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 2 Attributed Author / CompilerNo single author; compiled and copied by successive unnamed scribes of the town of Tizimin over generations, drawing on material traditionally credited to the prophecies of a chilam balam (jaguar priest). 2 Status
Canonical StatusA town chronicle and prophetic compilation rather than scripture in a liturgical sense, though it carries real religious and prophetic weight within the tradition that produced it. Structure
StructureCentered on a chronicle of katun history recording the migrations and political events of Yucatec Maya lineages, organized by the twenty year katun cycle, with prophecy and ritual material alongside it. 2 Text
Literary Form Transmission
Manuscript TraditionSurvives as a single manuscript in Yucatec Maya written in the Latin alphabet, organized around the katun cycle; Munro Edmonson's 1982 English translation and study remains the standard scholarly access point to its content. 2 Connections
Associated With
This source names Yucatec Maya directly: "compiled and copied by scribes of the Yucatec Maya town of Tizimin, distinct in both content and organization from the better known Chumayel book despite sharing the same genre and naming convention."
Source Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny: The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin (Munro S. Edmonson)Munro S. Edmonson, translator
Sources
1. Chilam Balam (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia: Chilam Balam, lead sectionQuote, Wikipedia: Chilam Balam, lead section
The Books of Chilam Balam are handwritten, chiefly 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies, named after the small Yucatec towns where they were originally kept.
2. Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny: The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin (Munro S. Edmonson)
Munro S. Edmonson, translator, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1982
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